Challenging Times at BISS Puxi

12 mei 2016

We have enjoyed some truly exciting experiences at the school in the last week and have challenged our students with a number of fun activities to provide a cerebral challenge.

This has seen our students take opportunities to develop their knowledge of literature; to demonstrate their amazing skills in photography; to prove their prowess in acting and to support our friends at the Qingpu Xiulong Migrant School with a ‘Readathon’ through the night on Friday! Notable achievements at the weekend in swimming are also worthy of your attention.

The challenge on Wednesday was for our pupils to guess the book title using the literary quotes that our staff wore on their backs (literally) for the day – here are are three of them – can you name the books?

“Callum is a nought and I am a cross. I wish things could be different.”

“Nobody understands that I just want to learn. My teacher, Miss Honey, is the only one who appreciates me”.

“I will take Prim’s place in the fight, and battle against Peeta”.

Keep reading to find the names of the books above. The students had great fun tracking down their moving clues throughout the day and it was a fun way of testing their knowledge and encouraging them to find out more about some of the most famous books across the globe.

This was followed on Friday with a ‘Dress up Day’ when students took the opportunity to arrive at school in their own outfit to represent a character from a famous piece of fiction. It was great fun to meet the students as they stepped off the buses, dressed in such colourful costumes – I spotted Hogwart’s favourites Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, the Queen of Hearts, Willy Wonka and the Hobbit. Well done to all those who took the time to participate – they also made a donation of 10 RMB each – this will go towards providing books for the children at the nearby Qingpu Xiulong Migrant School. Our students visit weekly to lend support in the classrooms and the children there will be very excited to receive their books in due course – my thanks to all of the students for taking part and to parents involved in helping to source costumes!

We were treated to the KS2 school production “Annie” on Friday evening and it was a breath-taking performance enjoyed by the whole school community in the auditorium. We enjoyed some fantastic songs through the highly polished performances of our younger actors and actresses. It was well supported by all of the school community, including secondary pupils. The evening at school did not end there for some of them, as they embarked upon an all-night ‘Readathon’ in the secondary library. Ghost stories and marshmallows were shared and I don’t think a lot of sleep was had – I met some very tired students and staff on Saturday morning! Again, pupils were raising money to provide literature for the migrant children.

Monday also saw some truly inspirational performances by our IGCSE Drama students in Year 10. As part of their coursework, the challenge had been to create a devised practical piece based on the theme ‘Read All About It’, using topics which have recently been seen in the media. There were three groups who tackled head on the French terrorist attacks in Paris, gay marriage in America and the effects of kidnapping on families. They were informative, sensitive and investigated the nature of the human condition in a very absorbing and technically skilled way. These performances would have been perfectly acceptable at IB level and were very well received and supported by parents and fellow students alike.

Remaining firmly within the theme of artistic talent, yesterday saw the announcement of our winners of the ‘Your Shanghai’ photography competition, which was open across the whole school. There have been some fantastic entries which can be seen on the display screens at reception and around the secondary building. Well done to the winners and runners-up respectively; Thomas Roberts (8S) and Zoe Riordan (9B) in the ‘Culture’ category; Jenny Chen, Ivy Chen and Charlotte Ferguson (all in 9S) in the ‘Environment’ category; and Jenny Chen (9S) and Arthur Restell (7S) in the ‘Portrait’ category.

I would also like to share with you the sporting success of our swimmers at the weekend. At the Rocket Science Long Course Swim Meeting held on Saturday, Daniel Tafelski and Jason Chang won first and second places respectively in the Boys 15+ age group. The relay team formed by Daniel, Johnny Yeng, Eddie Chan and Jason also won the 200m Freestyle Relay Event against strong opposition in the form of the SAS Pudong and SAS Puxi teams, setting a new school record of 1.46.62 minutes. My congratulations go to all of them for their excellent achievements.

And finally, for those of you who are keen to know the answers of those book titles, they are, in the order in which they appeared above; ‘Noughts and Crosses’, ‘Matilda’ and ‘The Hunger Games’.